The United States is constantly lecturing the world about the need to uphold and enforce international laws and conventions but yet it is frightened of submitting itself to the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice - to the point that it has been threatening countries into signing up bilateral treaties, or face sanctions, to ensure their soldiers would not be handed over to the ICJ under any circumstances.

What is it that the US is afraid of? Surely, a nation that is always proclaiming itself as the upholder of human rights and justice should be the first to endorse such an institution? We are constantly told about the virtue of the GI-Joes in the mainstream media, not to mention all those Hollywood blockbusters depicting the inherent goodness of the Americans, always saving the world from the clutches of evil foreign terrorists. Hence, US should have nothing to fear.

On the other hand, perhaps we are witnessing the fear of a guilty mind. The US forces fired at and killed journalists in the Iraq war. US soldiers have resorted to summary execution in Afghanistan's Mazar-e-Sharif as seen from the pictures of dead prisoners whose hands were tied behind their backs. The US forces also needlessly massacred the retreating civilians and soldiers when they were on their way to Basra from Kuwait during the first Gulf War. They buried many hundreds and thousands of Iraqi soldiers in the sand which made Saddam's mass graves look like a picnic.

Recently, the US forces have admitted that they shot and killed civilians indiscriminately. The world witnessed the use of cluster bombs on built-up civilian areas and the use of depleted uranium that has left long-term damage in the region. These are just a small snapshot of the recent US' track record in the Middle East, so what about other regions like Korea, Sudan, Libya, Vietnam, South and Central America?

Likewise, we are also witnessing America's fear of putting on trial those who are incarcerated in Guantanamo Bay. People have been held in these cages like animals, which includes children, and a few have been 'tortured' to death. Now the US is in the verge of holding secret trials, denying the defendants the right to have independent legal representation, using dubious testimonies and hearsay.

Prisoners have been given the Hobson's choice, either confess and get 20 years or face the death penalty upon conviction.

All this sounds exactly like the torture chambers and military courts of Hitler or Stalin. Had this been any Arab country meting out this sort of treatment to US citizens, there would have been an outcry. And the anger will not just be directed against the perpetrators but the entire Arab/Islamic civilisation.